I swallowed the lump in my throat, though it stretched my chest uncomfortably all the way down. “That was, uh . . . a very eloquent argument in favour of meat.”
“It was an argument in favour of committing to yourself,” Miles said, rolling his eyes. “To believing in yourself. But yes, adding a few hundred dollars to your food bill over the next couple of weeks isn’t going to ruin you. You don’t need meat to be an amazing player, but you do need belief.”
I looked from him to the meat fridge and back. He was right, yet I couldn’t bring myself to put any packets into the shopping basket at my feet.
Seeing my indecision, Miles threw up his hands. “Buy the meat, Mat. Or don’t. But make up your mind so we can get out of here before someone asks for my autograph in a fucking Tescos.”
“Uh, excuse me?”
We spun to find a young man grimacing at us apologetically. “Ah, shit,” Miles said. “Sorry, I . . . don’t have a pen with me.”
The young man’s eyes widened and he looked from Miles to me then along the aisle as though for help, before gesturing to the fridge. “I, uh, just want some sausages.”
I pressed my lips tight to keep from laughing as Miles moved out of the way, cheeks turning pink. The young man stepped up to the fridge between us and leaned down, taking his time to pick through the trays while Miles glared at me over his head.
“That,” he said, lifting an admonishing finger once the young man had hurried off, “didn’t happen, okay?”
“Pretty sure it did.” I grinned. “Miles Callahan, sausage blocker.”
“If that’s another terrible Australian phrase, I’m going to bite you.”
He stalked away on the words, leaving me laughing, though in the face of my indecision, it didn’t last long. It wasn’t really about the meat, I knew. Meat had just become an easy shorthand for a far larger collection of worries that ate at me daily. Worries about money and injuries and the unsustainability of the sport I loved, about how I’d failed to live up to my potential, and was losing strength for the fight.
Wise to stick to my plan and see how things went at Wimbledon, to be safe and sure, yet Miles’s words lodged in my mind like shards of glass. Sometimes, you have to take risks. Say fuck you to the fear and choose to believe in yourself. I wasn’t sure I could after years of failure, but for some reason he seemed to believe in me. Perhaps, for now, that would be enough.
I bought the meat.
IT WAS DARK when we got back. Miles took his groceries to his own apartment, but within a few minutes had brought a large tray of frozen fish and vegetables to stick in my oven before settling on the couch. We hadn’t discussed evening plans, yet the conversation at the courts hovered, sticky in the air, leaving the promise of a really hot fuck catching at my attention even as I put my groceries away.
“Can you get match replays?” Miles asked, gesturing at the TV.
“Yeah, I cast from the laptop. Which do you want?”
“The Van der Stoep-Kozel match from today. It’s been a while since I played Piotr, so I want to see how he’s doing.”
I closed the oven on my own tray of inelegantly laid out food. “You’re playing him on Wednesday?”
“Seems so. Would have bet on Pieter getting through myself. Ha! Pieter and Piotr. I didn’t notice.”
So, with our dinner cooking, we settled in to watch the battle of the Peters, its winner Miles’s next opponent.
“Damn, I forgot how little seating there is outside centre court,” Miles said. “Have you ever played Queen’s?”
“No.”
“Next year.”
The words contained such confidence that the damn lump was back in my throat, and I was glad his attention was wholly on the screen.
“Do you always watch your next opponent’s previous match?” I asked to change the subject.
“If I can. Leo likes to give me game plans, but I play best when I can get into their headspace.”
“So, you watched my first-round match in Paris?”
He looked at me, the sound of tennis a background rhythm. “Yeah. Resentfully though. I always preferred to watch you lose.”
“Wow,” I said, though I’d always done the same.
